Stuck in a creative rut?
Most designers have known the feeling at one point or another. When you’ve been working on one project for a long period of time or when you’ve been tasked to produce a particularly inventive concept, it can be a struggle to keep your mind fresh or to know where to look for inspiration. Thankfully we live in the age of the internet, and there are endless sources that can help get your creative juices flowing and keep you on the cutting edge of design.
There are, of course, the well-known heavy hitters of creative inspiration:
Design + Inspiration...Designspriation lives up to the name. It has a Pinterest or Instagram visual heavy, yet simple design.
Speaking of Pinterest. This is probably one of the most well-known platforms for gathering inspiration. The USP of Pinterest has always been that you can literally gather things that inspire you together, or 'pin' them to your virtual pinboard.
Called the “Tate Modern of the Internet,” Colossal is an international platform for contemporary art and visual expression that explores a vast range of creative disciplines.
Awwwards is a professional web design and development competition platform. It aims to recognise and promote the best of innovative web design. It is a website competition that developers can submit directly to.
Dezeen is the world's most popular and influential architecture and design magazine, and the winner of numerous awards for journalism and publishing.
Behance is an online platform - owned by Adobe - to showcase & discover creative work.
And these sites – which may be very well-known to some – have been perused by myself and my colleagues many, many times:
It’s Nice That believes passionately that creative inspiration is for everyone and by championing the most exciting and engaging work online, in print and through our events programme, we want to open up this world to the widest possible audience.
Grafik.net is a home for the world's most inspiring graphic design. Building on their 20-year heritage in print as Grafik magazine, they tap into the brilliant designers, curators, critics and image-makers who shape visual culture.
Canva is a graphic-design tool website, founded in 2012. It uses a drag-and-drop format and provides access to over a million photographs, graphics, and fonts. It is used by non-designers as well as professionals.
From up North is an online magazine that curates the creative web to deliver you the best and latest news from the creative industry. Sharing inspiration while showcasing amazing creatives across the globe.
Lost At E Minor is an Australian-based, global culture site. Since 2005, they've curated visually inspiring content for creative people, so they can live a life more inspired. We can all get on board with that.
Abduzeedo is a collective of individual writers sharing articles about design, photography, and UX as well as tutorials for Photoshop and other tools.
Founded, designed and curated by Ena Baćanović - a designer based in Zagreb - Croatia, The Design Blog brings you carefully picked high-quality inspiration, featuring works of designers and design studios from all over the world, with the main focus on young designers/ students.
Creative Review is a bimonthly print and online magazine. The magazine focuses on commercial creativity, covering design, advertising, photography, branding, digital products, film and gaming.
Under Consideration – Art of the Menu
Art of the Menu, is a division of UnderConsideration, cataloguing the underrated creativity of menus from around the world.
DMIJ (Design Made in Japan) is an attempt to map the design landscape in Japan with the help of designers, bloggers/writers or otherwise design interested individuals either living in Japan or abroad. Its aim is to become a central resource and platform on Japan design topics.
Daily inspiration for creative people. Fresh thinking, expert tips and tutorials to supercharge your creative muscles.
Fonts In Use is a public archive of typography indexed by typeface, format, industry, and period.
WE AND THE COLOR is a web magazine for your daily art and design inspiration.
Happy browsing!
